release_notes/linuxsampler_2_0_0/01_linuxsampler_2_0_0.html

<html>
  <head>
    <meta name="author" content="Christian Schoenebeck">
    <title>Release Notes LinuxSampler 2.0.0</title>
    <navpath>LinuxSampler 2.0.0</navpath>
    <meta name="description" content="Release notes for LinuxSampler 2.0.0.">
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="http://doc.linuxsampler.org/css/preview.css">
    <script type="text/javascript" src="http://doc.linuxsampler.org/js/preview.js"></script>
  </head>
  <body>
    <h1>LinuxSampler 2.0.0</h1>
    <p>
      Unbelievable six years have passed since the last release of LinuxSampler.
      A load of things have changed in silence, which I want to summarize for
      you in this article.
    </p>

    <h3>New Sampler Engines</h3>
    <p>
      The sampler's code base has seen substantial changes during that long
      period. The sampler engine code base has been unified to a set of common,
      abstract base classes which cleared the way for two new sampler engines:
      <ol>
        <li>The <b>SFZ2</b> format engine (.sfz).</li>
        <li>The <b>SoundFont 2</b> format engine (.sf2).</li>
      </ol>
      So LinuxSampler is not limited to just the GigaStudio/Gigasampler format
      (.gig) anymore.
    </p>

    <h3>Real-Time Instrument Scripts</h3>
    <p>
      Another major new feature is the brand new support for so called
      <i>Real-Time Instrument Scripts</i>, which are small programs that may be
      bundled with sound files to extend the sampler with custom behavior for
      individual sounds. You may know such instrument scripts from commercial
      software samplers. At the moment this scripting feature is yet limited to
      the Giga format engine. <a href="instrument_scripts.html">Find out more ...</a>
    </p>
    <img src="../../gigedit/scripts/gigedit_script_editor.png" caption="NKSP Instrument Script Editor of Gigedit">

    <h3>LSCP Shell</h3>
    <p>
      Also noteworthy is the new command line application <i>lscp</i>, which is
      a text based shell for controlling the sampler from the command line,
      providing colored output, type completion, help text while typing LSCP
      commands and other convenient features for terminal enthusiasts who want
      to use the sampler without GUI frontend applications.
      <a href="lscp_shell.html">Find out more ...</a>
    </p>
    <img src="../../lscp_shell/lscp_shell.png" caption="LSCP Shell">

    <h3>Internal Effects &amp; Extensions to LSCP</h3>
    <p>
      You may now also load external effects directly into the sampler. The
      <a href="http://www.linuxsampler.org/api/draft-linuxsampler-protocol.html">LSCP network protocol</a>
      (<a href="http://www.linuxsampler.org/api/lscp-1.7.html">v1.7</a>) has
      been extended to
      <a href="http://www.linuxsampler.org/api/draft-linuxsampler-protocol.html#effects">manage such effects</a>
      respectively. Effect chains may be
      built, and the individual sampler parts may be routed to an individual
      position of effect chains. At this point only LADSPA plugins are supported
      yet. However the sampler's effect subsystem uses an abstract interface,
      which allows easy integration of other effect systems. Also new with
      latest LSCP version is the ability to trigger MIDI CCs by LSCP command.
    </p>

    <h3>New GigaStudio format features</h3>
    <p>
      <img src="gigedit_imidi_rules.png">
      You may have heard that the GigaStudio software has seen its last version
      with GigaStudio 4. Tascam officially discontinued this product, its
      intellectual property has been sold several times among companies and
      there is currently no way to buy a new copy of GigaStudio anymore. However
      the GigaStudio format is still under active development with LinuxSampler.
      We not only added support for the latest features introduced with
      GigaStudio 4: iMIDI rules for example which allow to trigger notes by
      MIDI CC and allow i.e. defining a set of legato samples; for the first
      time ever we also added our own extensions to the Giga format: one of it
      is the previously mentioned new instrument scripting feature and a more
      minor extension is support for various other MIDI CCs which were never
      supported by GigaStudio before. So you can now use any MIDI CC for EG1
      controller, EG2 controller and attenuation controller.
    </p>

    <h3>DAW Plugin Enhancements</h3>
    <p>
      The sampler's host plugins have also seen some enhancements: the LV2
      plugin now stores and restores the sampler's overall state with the song
      of your DAW application, the LV2 and AudioUnit plugin's outputs
      were increased from 2 audio channels to 16 upon request by some users and
      the VST plugin now uses the sampler's
      <a href="http://www.linuxsampler.org/api/draft-linuxsampler-protocol.html#MIDI%20Instrument%20Mapping">MIDI instrument mapping system</a>
      to show a list of available sounds to allow the user to switch among them.
      And last but not least the VST plugin may also be used on Mac now.
    </p>

    <h2>Gigedit 1.0.0</h2>
    <p>
     <img src="gigedit_format_extension_warnings.png">
      Also <i>Gigedit</i>, our instrument editor for the GigaStudio/Gigasampler
      format, had been enhanced quite a lot during the last six years. As
      mentioned above, we introduced our own extensions to the Giga format.
      Obviously all those extensions will not work with any GigaStudio version,
      they only work with a recent version of Gigedit and LinuxSampler. Gigedit
      will inform you whenever you are using such kind of custom Giga format
      extension, so that you are always aware in case your changes to sounds are
      not cross/backward compatible with the GigaStudio software. You may also
      disable those warnings on the settings menu.
    </p>

    <h3>Multi-Selection of Dimension Zones</h3>
    <p>
      Until now you were only able to edit either exactly
      one dimension region or all dimension regions simultaneously with gigedit. With this
      release you may now hold the Ctrl button and select a specific set of
      dimension region zones in the dimension region selector area (on the very
      bottom of the Gigedit window) with your mouse. All synthesis parameters you
      then change, will all be applied to that precise set of dimension region
      zones.
    </p>
    <img src="gigedit_multi_zone_selection.png" caption="Multi-zone selection with Ctrl key">

    <h3>Improvements to Dimension Management</h3>
    <p>
      <img src="gigedit_change_dim_type.png">
      Also managing dimensions has been improved: previously to change the
      type of a dimension you had to delete and recreate the
      dimension. Which was not just inconvenient, but you also had to redefine
      your synthesis parameters from scratch. Now you can just open the
      dimension manager dialog, double click on the displayed dimension type
      and select another type for the respective dimension.
    </p>
    <p>
      <img src="gigedit_manage_dims_all_regions.png">
      Another great enhancement of the dimension manager is the ability to alter
      the dimensions of all regions of an instrument at once. Previously you had
      to do that for each region on the keyboard separately. For example to
      delete a velocity split dimension, you had to double click on a region,
      delete the velocity dimension with the dimension manager dialog, then
      double click on the next region, delete the velocity dimension there as
      well, and so on. Now you can just click on the "All Regions" check box of
      the dimension manager, select the velocity dimension, click on "Remove"
      and that's it. Also notice the different display style in this
      "All Regions" mode, like shown on the screen shot left: Since you are
      viewing the dimension properties of not just one region, but of all
      regions of your instrument, we thought we also need to show you in case
      individual regions differ regarding their precise dimension properties.
      For example on the screen shot on the left you see that some regions have
      a velocity dimension with 2 zones, whereas other regions have a velocity
      dimension with 4 zones instead. Also there seem to be some regions which
      have a modulation wheel dimension and other regions which do not have a
      modulation wheel dimension at all. Same applies to the Layer dimension:
      in this particular example not all regions do have a Layer dimension.
      However all regions seem to have a Sample Channel (Stereo) dimension,
      and all regions even have the same amount of zones for that particular dimension.
    </p>

    <h3>Monitoring Sample References</h3>
    <p>
      <img src="gigedit_sample_references.png">
      When working on complex Giga sounds you certainly noticed that one could
      easily get lost about which samples are exactly used by which
      instrument or even whether a sample is actually used at all by any
      instrument or just left orphaned and wasting disk space. This was also due
      to the fact that the Giga format does not require unique names for
      samples. We have worked on resolving this usability issue. In the samples
      list view you can now read the amount of times a sample is referenced by
      instruments of your .gig file. If a sample is not used at all, then it
      will be shown in striking red color in the sample list view. You may also
      right click on a sample and select "Show references...", a new
      window appears on your screen which will show you where exactly that
      particular sample is used by, that is by which instruments and by which
      regions of those instruments. Also the other way around has been
      addressed: when you now edit the synthesis parameters of a particular
      dimension region, you may now click on the new "&lt;- Select Sample"
      button and Gigedit automatically selects and displays the respective sample
      in the samples list view, which you then might rename to some more
      appropriate sample name, or you might check by which other instrument(s)
      that sample is used by, etc. You want to get rid of all unused samples?
      Simply right click on the samples list view and select
      "Remove unused samples", then select "Save" from the menu and all orphaned
      samples are gone.
    </p>
    <img src="gigedit_go_to_sample.png" caption="Find and select used sample">

    <h3>Silent Cases</h3>
    <p>
      <img src="gigedit_null_sample.png">
      You may now also remove the current sample reference from individual
      dimension regions (assigning a so called "NULL" sample instead) by clicking on
      the new "X" button next to the sample reference field on the "Sample" tab
      of a dimension region; this allows you to define "silent cases", that
      is a case where no sample should be played at all, for example this is
      often used for very low velocity ranges of i.e. between 0 and 6.
    </p>

    <h3>Reordering Instruments</h3>
    <p>
      <img src="gigedit_reorder_instruments.png">
      If you are working on .gig files with a large amount of Instruments, then
      you might also be glad to know that you can finally also re-order the
      instruments of a file by simply dragging the instruments around in the
      instruments list view.
    </p>

    <h3>Combine Tool</h3>
    <p>
      <img src="gigedit_combine_tool.png">
      Another handy new feature for sound designers is the new "Combine" tool,
      which you can reach from the main menu. It allows you to select two ore
      more instruments (by holding down the Ctrl key while selecting with mouse
      left click) from your currently open Giga file and combine those selected
      instruments to a new instrument. This way you may for example create
      stunning layered sounds, or you may create velocity splits, crossfade
      sounds by MIDI controller and much more, all with just a few clicks. This
      may sound like a trivial task, but if you have worked on this before, you
      certainly noticed that this was often a very time consuming and error
      prone task before, especially with complex individual sounds which had
      custom region ranges, custom velocity splits and much more exotic stuff
      to take care of. The combine tool handles all such cases for you
      automatically.
    </p>

    <h3>Improved Interaction with LinuxSampler</h3>
    <p>
      Last but not least, the interaction of Gigedit with LinuxSampler (in so
      called "live mode") had been improved: When you click on the "Edit"
      button of a channel strip in QSampler or Fantasia, Gigedit will be
      launched with the respective instrument automatically being selected.
      Vice versa you may now also just select another instrument with Gigedit's
      instrument list view and LinuxSampler will automatically load and play
      that instrument on the respective sampler part for you. So no more need
      to switch between the Gigedit window and QSampler/Fantasia window all the
      time while working on your sounds with Gigedit.
    </p>

    <h2>QSampler 0.3.0</h2>
    <p>
      <img src="qsampler_sf2_selection.png">
      As new sampler formats made it into LinuxSampler, this was also addressed
      with QSampler. The sound selection dialog now also enumerates the sounds
      of a selected SoundFont file. And to ease switching between sounds, you
      may now click on the name of the current instrument of a channel strip,
      a list will popup that alows you to quickly switch to another sound,
      without having to open the channel strip's detailed part dialog.
    </p>
    <img src="qsampler_quick_switch.png" caption="Drop down list for fast switching between instruments">

    <h3>Suppressing Error Popups</h3>
    <p>
      In the past, error message dialogs frequently popped up on the screen.
      Most of them were just telling unuseful messages, even if the overall
      operation with the sampler was working correctly. There is now an "ignore"
      check box attached to those error message dialogs, which allow you to
      suppress most of the annoying error messages.
    </p>

    <h3>Improved Mac Support</h3>
    <p>
      Recently we created a convenient installer for Mac OS X, which
      conveniently installs all our software components on your Mac. So that
      includes the stand-alone version of the LinuxSampler backend, VST and
      AudioUnit plugin version of the sampler, "Fantasia" and "QSampler" frontends,
      our instrument editor "Gigedit", the LSCP shell and various other command
      line tools. You may also choose only some of them to be installed.
    </p>
    <img src="http://download.linuxsampler.org/pix/screenshots/mac_installer_1.jpg">
    <p>
      Using the sampler has also been improved on Mac. Before you first had to
      launch the LinuxSampler backend separately and then launch QSampler.
      Sometimes the sampler backend even had to be killed explicitly. Now
      you can just click on the QSampler icon and it will automatically spawn
      the sampler backend for you and shows its output on QSampler's integrated
      terminal section. When you quit QSampler, it will also stop the sampler backend
      for you automatically (you may tell QSampler to keep the sampler running in the background).
    </p>

    <h2>libgig 4.0.0</h2>
    <p>
      Our fundamental file access C++ library
      <a href="http://download.linuxsampler.org/doc/libgig/api/">libgig</a>
      is now more than just a supporter of the GigaStudio/Gigasampler file
      format. New file formats have been added and are now bundled with libgig:
      <ol>
        <li>
          <a href="http://download.linuxsampler.org/doc/libgig/api/namespaceKorg.html">
            Classes for KORG's sample based instrument files
          </a> (.KSF, .KMP).
        </li>
        <li>
          <a href="http://download.linuxsampler.org/doc/libgig/api/namespacesf2.html">
            Classes for SoundFont v2 files
          </a> (.sf2).
        </li>
        <li>
          <a href="http://download.linuxsampler.org/doc/libgig/api/classResource.html">
            Classes for AKAI sampler data.
          </a>
        </li>
      </ol>
      Various command line tools have been added to libgig, which allow to
      dump, correct, extract and convert sounds between those various file formats.
      Refer to the individual <i>man pages</i> for details about how to use
      those new command line tools. As you can see, the ground had been prepared
      for further new sampler engines with LinuxSampler to come.
    </p>

  </body>
</html>
1	<html>
2	<head>
3	<meta name="author" content="Christian Schoenebeck">
4	<title>Release Notes LinuxSampler 2.0.0</title>
5	<navpath>LinuxSampler 2.0.0</navpath>
6	<meta name="description" content="Release notes for LinuxSampler 2.0.0.">
7	<link rel="stylesheet" href="http://doc.linuxsampler.org/css/preview.css">
8	<script type="text/javascript" src="http://doc.linuxsampler.org/js/preview.js"></script>
9	</head>
10	<body>
11	<h1>LinuxSampler 2.0.0</h1>
12	<p>
13	Unbelievable six years have passed since the last release of LinuxSampler.
14	A load of things have changed in silence, which I want to summarize for
15	you in this article.
16	</p>
17
18	<h3>New Sampler Engines</h3>
19	<p>
20	The sampler's code base has seen substantial changes during that long
21	period. The sampler engine code base has been unified to a set of common,
22	abstract base classes which cleared the way for two new sampler engines:
23	<ol>
24	<li>The <b>SFZ2</b> format engine (.sfz).</li>
25	<li>The <b>SoundFont 2</b> format engine (.sf2).</li>
26	</ol>
27	So LinuxSampler is not limited to just the GigaStudio/Gigasampler format
28	(.gig) anymore.
29	</p>
30
31	<h3>Real-Time Instrument Scripts</h3>
32	<p>
33	Another major new feature is the brand new support for so called
34	<i>Real-Time Instrument Scripts</i>, which are small programs that may be
35	bundled with sound files to extend the sampler with custom behavior for
36	individual sounds. You may know such instrument scripts from commercial
37	software samplers. At the moment this scripting feature is yet limited to
38	the Giga format engine. <a href="instrument_scripts.html">Find out more ...</a>
39	</p>
40	<img src="../../gigedit/scripts/gigedit_script_editor.png" caption="NKSP Instrument Script Editor of Gigedit">
41
42	<h3>LSCP Shell</h3>
43	<p>
44	Also noteworthy is the new command line application <i>lscp</i>, which is
45	a text based shell for controlling the sampler from the command line,
46	providing colored output, type completion, help text while typing LSCP
47	commands and other convenient features for terminal enthusiasts who want
48	to use the sampler without GUI frontend applications.
49	<a href="lscp_shell.html">Find out more ...</a>
50	</p>
51	<img src="../../lscp_shell/lscp_shell.png" caption="LSCP Shell">
52
53	<h3>Internal Effects & Extensions to LSCP</h3>
54	<p>
55	You may now also load external effects directly into the sampler. The
56	<a href="http://www.linuxsampler.org/api/draft-linuxsampler-protocol.html">LSCP network protocol</a>
57	(<a href="http://www.linuxsampler.org/api/lscp-1.7.html">v1.7</a>) has
58	been extended to
59	<a href="http://www.linuxsampler.org/api/draft-linuxsampler-protocol.html#effects">manage such effects</a>
60	respectively. Effect chains may be
61	built, and the individual sampler parts may be routed to an individual
62	position of effect chains. At this point only LADSPA plugins are supported
63	yet. However the sampler's effect subsystem uses an abstract interface,
64	which allows easy integration of other effect systems. Also new with
65	latest LSCP version is the ability to trigger MIDI CCs by LSCP command.
66	</p>
67
68	<h3>New GigaStudio format features</h3>
69	<p>
70	<img src="gigedit_imidi_rules.png">
71	You may have heard that the GigaStudio software has seen its last version
72	with GigaStudio 4. Tascam officially discontinued this product, its
73	intellectual property has been sold several times among companies and
74	there is currently no way to buy a new copy of GigaStudio anymore. However
75	the GigaStudio format is still under active development with LinuxSampler.
76	We not only added support for the latest features introduced with
77	GigaStudio 4: iMIDI rules for example which allow to trigger notes by
78	MIDI CC and allow i.e. defining a set of legato samples; for the first
79	time ever we also added our own extensions to the Giga format: one of it
80	is the previously mentioned new instrument scripting feature and a more
81	minor extension is support for various other MIDI CCs which were never
82	supported by GigaStudio before. So you can now use any MIDI CC for EG1
83	controller, EG2 controller and attenuation controller.
84	</p>
85
86	<h3>DAW Plugin Enhancements</h3>
87	<p>
88	The sampler's host plugins have also seen some enhancements: the LV2
89	plugin now stores and restores the sampler's overall state with the song
90	of your DAW application, the LV2 and AudioUnit plugin's outputs
91	were increased from 2 audio channels to 16 upon request by some users and
92	the VST plugin now uses the sampler's
93	<a href="http://www.linuxsampler.org/api/draft-linuxsampler-protocol.html#MIDI%20Instrument%20Mapping">MIDI instrument mapping system</a>
94	to show a list of available sounds to allow the user to switch among them.
95	And last but not least the VST plugin may also be used on Mac now.
96	</p>
97
98	<h2>Gigedit 1.0.0</h2>
99	<p>
100	<img src="gigedit_format_extension_warnings.png">
101	Also <i>Gigedit</i>, our instrument editor for the GigaStudio/Gigasampler
102	format, had been enhanced quite a lot during the last six years. As
103	mentioned above, we introduced our own extensions to the Giga format.
104	Obviously all those extensions will not work with any GigaStudio version,
105	they only work with a recent version of Gigedit and LinuxSampler. Gigedit
106	will inform you whenever you are using such kind of custom Giga format
107	extension, so that you are always aware in case your changes to sounds are
108	not cross/backward compatible with the GigaStudio software. You may also
109	disable those warnings on the settings menu.
110	</p>
111
112	<h3>Multi-Selection of Dimension Zones</h3>
113	<p>
114	Until now you were only able to edit either exactly
115	one dimension region or all dimension regions simultaneously with gigedit. With this
116	release you may now hold the Ctrl button and select a specific set of
117	dimension region zones in the dimension region selector area (on the very
118	bottom of the Gigedit window) with your mouse. All synthesis parameters you
119	then change, will all be applied to that precise set of dimension region
120	zones.
121	</p>
122	<img src="gigedit_multi_zone_selection.png" caption="Multi-zone selection with Ctrl key">
123
124	<h3>Improvements to Dimension Management</h3>
125	<p>
126	<img src="gigedit_change_dim_type.png">
127	Also managing dimensions has been improved: previously to change the
128	type of a dimension you had to delete and recreate the
129	dimension. Which was not just inconvenient, but you also had to redefine
130	your synthesis parameters from scratch. Now you can just open the
131	dimension manager dialog, double click on the displayed dimension type
132	and select another type for the respective dimension.
133	</p>
134	<p>
135	<img src="gigedit_manage_dims_all_regions.png">
136	Another great enhancement of the dimension manager is the ability to alter
137	the dimensions of all regions of an instrument at once. Previously you had
138	to do that for each region on the keyboard separately. For example to
139	delete a velocity split dimension, you had to double click on a region,
140	delete the velocity dimension with the dimension manager dialog, then
141	double click on the next region, delete the velocity dimension there as
142	well, and so on. Now you can just click on the "All Regions" check box of
143	the dimension manager, select the velocity dimension, click on "Remove"
144	and that's it. Also notice the different display style in this
145	"All Regions" mode, like shown on the screen shot left: Since you are
146	viewing the dimension properties of not just one region, but of all
147	regions of your instrument, we thought we also need to show you in case
148	individual regions differ regarding their precise dimension properties.
149	For example on the screen shot on the left you see that some regions have
150	a velocity dimension with 2 zones, whereas other regions have a velocity
151	dimension with 4 zones instead. Also there seem to be some regions which
152	have a modulation wheel dimension and other regions which do not have a
153	modulation wheel dimension at all. Same applies to the Layer dimension:
154	in this particular example not all regions do have a Layer dimension.
155	However all regions seem to have a Sample Channel (Stereo) dimension,
156	and all regions even have the same amount of zones for that particular dimension.
157	</p>
158
159	<h3>Monitoring Sample References</h3>
160	<p>
161	<img src="gigedit_sample_references.png">
162	When working on complex Giga sounds you certainly noticed that one could
163	easily get lost about which samples are exactly used by which
164	instrument or even whether a sample is actually used at all by any
165	instrument or just left orphaned and wasting disk space. This was also due
166	to the fact that the Giga format does not require unique names for
167	samples. We have worked on resolving this usability issue. In the samples
168	list view you can now read the amount of times a sample is referenced by
169	instruments of your .gig file. If a sample is not used at all, then it
170	will be shown in striking red color in the sample list view. You may also
171	right click on a sample and select "Show references...", a new
172	window appears on your screen which will show you where exactly that
173	particular sample is used by, that is by which instruments and by which
174	regions of those instruments. Also the other way around has been
175	addressed: when you now edit the synthesis parameters of a particular
176	dimension region, you may now click on the new "<- Select Sample"
177	button and Gigedit automatically selects and displays the respective sample
178	in the samples list view, which you then might rename to some more
179	appropriate sample name, or you might check by which other instrument(s)
180	that sample is used by, etc. You want to get rid of all unused samples?
181	Simply right click on the samples list view and select
182	"Remove unused samples", then select "Save" from the menu and all orphaned
183	samples are gone.
184	</p>
185	<img src="gigedit_go_to_sample.png" caption="Find and select used sample">
186
187	<h3>Silent Cases</h3>
188	<p>
189	<img src="gigedit_null_sample.png">
190	You may now also remove the current sample reference from individual
191	dimension regions (assigning a so called "NULL" sample instead) by clicking on
192	the new "X" button next to the sample reference field on the "Sample" tab
193	of a dimension region; this allows you to define "silent cases", that
194	is a case where no sample should be played at all, for example this is
195	often used for very low velocity ranges of i.e. between 0 and 6.
196	</p>
197
198	<h3>Reordering Instruments</h3>
199	<p>
200	<img src="gigedit_reorder_instruments.png">
201	If you are working on .gig files with a large amount of Instruments, then
202	you might also be glad to know that you can finally also re-order the
203	instruments of a file by simply dragging the instruments around in the
204	instruments list view.
205	</p>
206
207	<h3>Combine Tool</h3>
208	<p>
209	<img src="gigedit_combine_tool.png">
210	Another handy new feature for sound designers is the new "Combine" tool,
211	which you can reach from the main menu. It allows you to select two ore
212	more instruments (by holding down the Ctrl key while selecting with mouse
213	left click) from your currently open Giga file and combine those selected
214	instruments to a new instrument. This way you may for example create
215	stunning layered sounds, or you may create velocity splits, crossfade
216	sounds by MIDI controller and much more, all with just a few clicks. This
217	may sound like a trivial task, but if you have worked on this before, you
218	certainly noticed that this was often a very time consuming and error
219	prone task before, especially with complex individual sounds which had
220	custom region ranges, custom velocity splits and much more exotic stuff
221	to take care of. The combine tool handles all such cases for you
222	automatically.
223	</p>
224
225	<h3>Improved Interaction with LinuxSampler</h3>
226	<p>
227	Last but not least, the interaction of Gigedit with LinuxSampler (in so
228	called "live mode") had been improved: When you click on the "Edit"
229	button of a channel strip in QSampler or Fantasia, Gigedit will be
230	launched with the respective instrument automatically being selected.
231	Vice versa you may now also just select another instrument with Gigedit's
232	instrument list view and LinuxSampler will automatically load and play
233	that instrument on the respective sampler part for you. So no more need
234	to switch between the Gigedit window and QSampler/Fantasia window all the
235	time while working on your sounds with Gigedit.
236	</p>
237
238	<h2>QSampler 0.3.0</h2>
239	<p>
240	<img src="qsampler_sf2_selection.png">
241	As new sampler formats made it into LinuxSampler, this was also addressed
242	with QSampler. The sound selection dialog now also enumerates the sounds
243	of a selected SoundFont file. And to ease switching between sounds, you
244	may now click on the name of the current instrument of a channel strip,
245	a list will popup that alows you to quickly switch to another sound,
246	without having to open the channel strip's detailed part dialog.
247	</p>
248	<img src="qsampler_quick_switch.png" caption="Drop down list for fast switching between instruments">
249
250	<h3>Suppressing Error Popups</h3>
251	<p>
252	In the past, error message dialogs frequently popped up on the screen.
253	Most of them were just telling unuseful messages, even if the overall
254	operation with the sampler was working correctly. There is now an "ignore"
255	check box attached to those error message dialogs, which allow you to
256	suppress most of the annoying error messages.
257	</p>
258
259	<h3>Improved Mac Support</h3>
260	<p>
261	Recently we created a convenient installer for Mac OS X, which
262	conveniently installs all our software components on your Mac. So that
263	includes the stand-alone version of the LinuxSampler backend, VST and
264	AudioUnit plugin version of the sampler, "Fantasia" and "QSampler" frontends,
265	our instrument editor "Gigedit", the LSCP shell and various other command
266	line tools. You may also choose only some of them to be installed.
267	</p>
268	<img src="http://download.linuxsampler.org/pix/screenshots/mac_installer_1.jpg">
269	<p>
270	Using the sampler has also been improved on Mac. Before you first had to
271	launch the LinuxSampler backend separately and then launch QSampler.
272	Sometimes the sampler backend even had to be killed explicitly. Now
273	you can just click on the QSampler icon and it will automatically spawn
274	the sampler backend for you and shows its output on QSampler's integrated
275	terminal section. When you quit QSampler, it will also stop the sampler backend
276	for you automatically (you may tell QSampler to keep the sampler running in the background).
277	</p>
278
279	<h2>libgig 4.0.0</h2>
280	<p>
281	Our fundamental file access C++ library
282	<a href="http://download.linuxsampler.org/doc/libgig/api/">libgig</a>
283	is now more than just a supporter of the GigaStudio/Gigasampler file
284	format. New file formats have been added and are now bundled with libgig:
285	<ol>
286	<li>
287	<a href="http://download.linuxsampler.org/doc/libgig/api/namespaceKorg.html">
288	Classes for KORG's sample based instrument files
289	</a> (.KSF, .KMP).
290	</li>
291	<li>
292	<a href="http://download.linuxsampler.org/doc/libgig/api/namespacesf2.html">
293	Classes for SoundFont v2 files
294	</a> (.sf2).
295	</li>
296	<li>
297	<a href="http://download.linuxsampler.org/doc/libgig/api/classResource.html">
298	Classes for AKAI sampler data.
299	</a>
300	</li>
301	</ol>
302	Various command line tools have been added to libgig, which allow to
303	dump, correct, extract and convert sounds between those various file formats.
304	Refer to the individual <i>man pages</i> for details about how to use
305	those new command line tools. As you can see, the ground had been prepared
306	for further new sampler engines with LinuxSampler to come.
307	</p>
308
309	</body>
310	</html>